[L-I] [ INDIA ] ML Update Vol . 6 No. 41 8 - 14 October 2003

ML Update
A CPI(ML) Weekly News Magazine
Vol.  6 No.  41 8-14 October  2003

FARCICAL FIATS WILL END IN A FIASCO

"Shiv thakurer aapon deshe, aain-kanoon sarboneshe (the laws are a disaster
in the land of Lord Shiva)," wrote Bengal's greatest satirist poet Sukumar
Ray. Of late the high priests of 'judicial activism' in India have been
working overtime to enrich Shiv thakur's law manual with more and more
arbitrary clauses. Closure of 'polluting' industries, eviction of tribal
'encroachers' from their traditional habitat, banning of bandhs and strikes,
honouring public dissent over the judiciary's role with prison sentences to
save the courts from being held in 'contempt' - the list of farcical
judicial fiats is getting longer by the day. And now as the biggest annual
festival fever of Bengal gripped Kolkata, the city High Court came up with
an 'order' that would make even Lord Shiva blush.

If the Kolkata High Court is allowed to have its way, there can now be no
processions in the city on weekdays between 8 AM and 8 PM. The court has
sought to justify this outright ban on processions of the people by citing
the prevalent restrictions on the movement of goods and trucks! This blanket
ban is accompanied by a loaded rider that is intended to bring additional
cheers to the litigation industry. Rally organisers will henceforth have to
pay a hefty security deposit while seeking permission for rallies so that
compensation could presumably be paid to citizens whose interests are
adversely affected by such rallies. And if 'rally victims' are denied
compensation, they can of course file lawsuits which will have to be
disposed of mandatorily within a period of three months. Is this the
litigation mafia's lucrative model of functional Americanisation?

The corporate bosses, the trader lobby and the car-borne 'middle' class of
Kolkata have of course welcomed this 'landmark' judgement. The people at
large and political parties, trade unions and other mass organisations have
however all opposed this autocratic fiat and resolved to take to the streets
to voice their disapproval. The Left Front government has appealed for a
judicial review, but a two-member vacation bench of the High Court has
refused to stay the order while making concession for 'religious'
processions.  Instead of viewing the Kolkata judgement in the context of
growing authoritarian trends, the chairman of the Left Front, Biman Basu has
however chosen to trivialise the entire issue by singling out the judge in
question (Amitabh Lala) and asking him to leave Kolkata if he could not
stomach the ethos of Kolkata!

Biman Basu is at a loss to figure out how somebody who 'belonged' to Kolkata
could issue such an 'alien' verdict. Well, comrade, this is the new Kolkata
you have shaped and courted so assiduously over the last quarter century.
Day in and day out your leaders and ministers tell the world that Bengal
could turn a new leaf only by shedding the 'baggage' of revolutionary
ideology and mass agitations. They take pride in building union-free 'free'
trade zones and preaching 'industrial peace' to the workers of closed and
locked out industries. Your chief minister is the new darling of the
corporate world and the upwardly mobile new 'middle' class who are going
gaga over this 'revolutionary' judgement. This is the class basis and real
essence of the 'emerging identity' of CPI(M)-ruled West Bengal. The chickens
of your own reforms are now coming home to roost, comrade! Stop cringing, it
is too late to cry foul!

Democracy is government of the people, by the people, for the people. That
was the good old dictum of Abraham Lincoln in the early days of capitalism.
The era of imperialist globalisation has produced its own new discourse:
democracy is governance over the people, beyond the people, against the
people! The Indian globalisers are all schooled in this new gospel - they
want to replace the vibrance and colour of mass politics with the tyranny
and monotony of the electronic and print media. But worldwide, the
anti-globalisation anti-war movement has announced an emphatic revival of
mass politics. Sanitised debates and empty panel discussions on corporate
television channels are paling into insignificance in the face of massive
and powerful mass demonstrations. The street has begun to overtake the
studio. The attempts to 'discipline' Indian democracy and snuff out protests
through farcical fiats - judicial, executive or legislative - are bound to
end in a fiasco.


LONG LIVE THE GLORIOUS LEGACY OF  COMRADE NAGABHUSHAN

Five years ago the legendary revolutionary Comrade Nagbhushan Patnaik
breathed his last on 9 October, 1998. But the words he reiterated from his
death-bed in Chennai "In life and in death, I am meant for the Party and the
revolution" ring till date in our ears and will continue to infuse energy
and vigour into our souls in our march towards fulfilling his unfinished
task.

As Comrade Vinod Mishra recalled in his speech delivered at the funeral of
Comrade Nagbhushan Patnaik: Comrade NBP had been sentenced to death in the '
70s. But in the face of powerful protests by democratic and progressive
forces throughout the country the President of India was compelled to
commute the sentence to life imprisonment. On his part Comrade Nagbhushan
never begged mercy of the state. On the contrary, he wrote to the President,
"In case anybody happens to plead compassion for me, let it be on record
that I'm totally against any such move." Yet the pressure of democratic
forces was so high that the President had to reduce the sentence. While
serving life imprisonment he was kept in solitary confinement and subjected
to various tortures with an eye to killing him bit by bit. But Nagbhushan
refused to die. He carried on his battle. Under the tremendous pressure of
democratic opinion, once again a historic decision had to be taken - this
time by the Supreme Court. Comrade Nagbhushan was released on indefinite
parole. Technically, he was a prisoner till his death. The demand for his
release had become the rallying point of the post-Emergency democratic
rights movement and gradually Nagbhushan had grown into the conscience of
democratic forces.

Way back in 1980 Comrade Vinod Mishra had promptly responded to Comrade
Nagbhushan's fervent appeal for a revolutionary communist unity appearing in
Frontier under the title "A Few Questions". In his warm response Comrade VM
had written: "Nagbhushan Patnaik is the name of an Iron Man, of a brave
proletarian fighter and a worthy Party leader. And therefore, in spite of
his serious sickness which has brought him close to death, he remains a
constant source of fear to the enemy." Responding to Nagbhushan's call for
unity he had written "You can rest assured Unite We Shall". That was the
beginning of the interaction of the reorganised CPI(ML) with Comrade
Nagbhushan. And towards the end of his life, Comrade Nagbhushan, while
attending the inaugural session of CPI's 17th Congress, appealed, "Political
cooperation among all sections of the Left must become the primary agenda
today and this cooperation must now enter a decisive phase of popular
political assertion of the united Left. I know, our differences will not go
away in one day, but that must not prevent us from marching together with
mutual respect and striking together with all our combined strength against
our common enemy."
Comrade Nagbhushan, who always held that "Our Party has a bright future",
was an epitome of struggle, of steadfastness, of dedication and sacrifice,
and of unity. On the fifth anniversary of his momentous departure, we pay
our homage to this great revolutionary hero and pledge to redouble our
efforts to realise his dream.


CPI(ML) POLITI BUREAU MEETING

The CPI(ML) Polit Bureau met in Kolkata on October 3-5 and took stock of the
latest developments in the national situation. We reproduce the major points
of deliberations as below:

1. Following the submission of the ASI report and the verdict of the Rae
Bareli special court, the Sangh Parivar has intensified its temple campaign.
While the Parivar's internal contradictions and differences have also been
aggravated by the differential treatment meted out to Advani and Joshi, all
the affiliates of the RSS are at one in their attempt to step up the
Hindutva offensive around the issue of the temple. The response of the
bourgeois opposition to this campaign is however by and large defensive, the
dilemma being most pronounced on the part of the SP in Uttar Pradesh with
Mulayam Singh Yadav welcoming the Rae Bareli verdict and refusing to take
any initiative to press the charges against Advani. However, we must note
that despite the Parivar's attempts there is little frenzy this time among
any section of the masses whether in Uttar Pradesh or the rest of the
country on the issue of Ayodhya. Against this backdrop, the PB has called
upon the Party to step up the Save Democracy, Save India campaign to
strengthen our propaganda and agitational efforts on the burning demands of
the people and counter the BJP's temple politics with a powerful democratic
agenda of the people.

2. The sudden change of guards in Uttar Pradesh has unmistakably affected
the balance of political forces in the non-BJP camp. The BJP has been
instrumental in dislodging the BSP-BJP coalition government and bringing
Mulayam Singh Yadav back to power in Uttar Pradesh. In the process, the
party has been successful in saving its own legislators from crossing over
to the SP and also in pushing the BSP into its most serious crisis in recent
years. While the BJP and SP formally remain in opposite camps, the SP has
already begun to adopt the stance of a pro-NDA government like the TDP
government in Andhra or the AIADMK regime in TN. The growing political stock
of the SP has also posed an implicit challenge to the idea of a Congress-led
secular front as advocated by parties like the CPI-CPM, RJD and LJP.
Together with the NCP and JD(S), the SP may now well revive the idea of a
third front. The recent by-elections and municipal elections in Orissa have
also exposed the exaggerated notions of a grand revival of the Congress.
This turn of events has placed us in a favourable situation to conduct a
vigorous exposure campaign against both the pro-BJP opportunism of the BSP
and SP and the CPI-CPI(M) line of pro-Congress tailism while building a
popular campaign in Uttar Pradesh to force the Mulayam Singh government to
fulfil its populist promises.

3. The BJP is trying to project the collapse of the WTO's Cancun summit as a
great victory and as the ultimate swadeshi certificate to whitewash the
party's disgraceful pro-US record in terms of both economic and foreign
policies. We must make it clear that Cancun has merely managed to avert
additional blows and buy some extra time. Not a single measure of the WTO
has been reversed or rolled back. Even this has been achieved not by the
so-called bargaining strategy of India but by the active opposition put up
by the least developed countries of Africa. The Government of India did not
even dare raise the basic national demand to secure India's right to impose
effective quantitative and other restrictions to stop or discourage imports
that have an adverse impact on India's domestic industry and agriculture.
While exposing the government's false claims concerning WTO, we must also
sharpen the struggle on the foreign policy front. The visit of Israeli Prime
Minister Ariel Sharon evoked strong protests among democratic circles all
over the country. The policy of a growing partnership between India and
Israel is fraught with disastrous implications for peace and security in
South Asia. It has already given a jolt to the process of normalisation of
Indo-Pak ties and antagonised India's traditional friends in the Arab world.
With the arms race getting intensified, the threat of border-skirmishes
between India and Pakistan is also increasing. A government faced with
growing popular anger is bound to seek political salvation in a jingoistic
climate and the democratic movement must be alert and powerful enough to
block such an escape route.

4. Under popular pressure and judicial censure, the government has been
forced on the defensive on certain major issues like the trial of some of
the perpetrators of the genocide in Gujarat, and disinvestment of public
sector oil companies. The government is however trying every possible means
to sidetrack this opposition and push through its agenda. Despite the
Supreme Court's express ban on HPCL/BPCL disinvestmnent without
parliamentary approval, the government has now declared its intent to
privatise the Indian Oil Corporation, one of the biggest profit-making PSUs.
The trade unions must go all out to oppose this policy of disinvestment and
privatisation and assert their right to collective bargaining and mass
strikes. Judicial verdicts in recent times reflect the conflicting pulls and
strong divisions that exist in our polity and society on almost all basic
issues concerning the country's future. Instead of being deterred by adverse
judicial pronouncements, the democratic movement must squarely combat
autocratic tendencies in every sphere of the state and society.

5. The PB strongly condemned the brutal incident of police firing on tea
garden workers in Assam. Tea workers demanding their rightful bonus have
been greeted with bullets by the Congress-led government of Assam. While the
Congress government seeks to silence the just voice of the tea workers at
gunpoint, the pro-Congress INTUC union continues to backstab the workers'
struggle for their livelihood and basic rights. The Assam unit of our Party
and the tea workers' union led by our comrades are carrying on a vigorous
campaign against the concerted onslaught on the tea workers of Assam. After
a series of successful agitational programmes, the Party and the tea workers
' union are now contemplating a statewide bandh (on 17 October) to press the
movement forward.

6. In Bihar, the August 21 bandh has been a great success and the movement
against criminalisation of politics and murder of democracy in Bihar has
entered a new phase of militant mass assertion. In Darbhanga, the AISA-RYA
programme of a black flag demonstration against LK Advani's visit grew into
a sustained popular movement which exposed the anti-democratic character of
the Laloo-Rabri regime and eventually succeeded in forcing the government on
the backfoot. The conviction of our comrades in Jehanabad under TADA and the
invoking of sedition charges on the protesting activists of AISA-RYA in
Darbhanga have been condemned widely by the intelligentsia both within and
outside Bihar. The PB has congratulated all concerned organisations and
individuals on the victory of the Darbhanga movement and called for a still
bigger and more powerful mobilisation of the public opinion in defence of
democracy.

7. The PB termed the recent verdict issued by a judge of the Kolkata High
Court banning demonstrations and rallies in the city during weekdays as an
outright mockery and negation of the constitutionally guaranteed fundamental
democratic rights of the people. Viewed with the recent Supreme Court
pronouncement against state government employees' right to strike and
similar judgements issued by several other courts imposing all sorts of
restrictions on the people's basic rights like the freedom of assembly,
freedom of speech and freedom of expression, the Kolkata High Court verdict
is symptomatic of a larger trend of judicial despotism and must be countered
by every defender of democracy. While welcoming the widespread resentment
expressed by almost all Left and democratic forces in West Bengal, the PB
has also underlined the complicity of the CPI(M)-led government of West
Bengal in promoting an anti-democratic anti-worker climate in the state
which is now demanding its pound of flesh from the Left Front Government and
the people of West Bengal by imposing increasing restrictions on democracy.

8. The PB described the PWG's bid to assassinate Chandrababu Naidu as a
desperate act of terror detrimental to the basic interests and purpose of
the democratic movement. Such acts, however sensational, can never hide the
singular failure of the PWG to offer any credible political opposition to
the Chandrababu government and its blatantly anti-people policies. Such acts
of despair only end up giving a new lease of political life to reactionary
politicians while facilitating their repressive designs. The PB has called
upon the activists, supporters and well-wishers of the PWG to see through
the shortsighted and counter-productive nature of such acts.


ON  PWG's ASSASSINATION ATTEMPT ON NAIDU

On Oct 1, the People's War Group (PWG) attempted in vain to assassinate
Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister Mr. Chandrababu Naidu through a landmine blast
at Tirupati. Though apparently very sensational this is a thoroughly stupid
act. Individual acts of terrorism would only weaken the revolutionary
movement. And this senseless act isolated from people's movements is also
bound to strengthen white terror and rebound on PWG with several times
greater intensity. The ruling classes cannot be overthrown through
individual assassination of their leaders in terrorist acts. Such acts have
nothing to do with Leninism. Lenin fought uncompromisingly against
Socialist-Revolutionaries who were the counterparts of PWG in the then
Russia. To quote Lenin: "Because the Socialist-Revolutionaries, by including
terrorism in their programme and advocating it in its present-day form as a
means of political struggle, are thereby doing the most serious harm to the
movement, destroying the indissoluble ties between socialist work and the
mass of the revolutionary class. No verbal assurances and vows can disprove
the unquestionable fact that present-day terrorism, as practised and
advocated by the Socialist-Revolutionaries, is  not connected in any way
with work among the masses, for the masses, or together with the masses;
that the organisation of terroristic acts by the Party distracts our very
scanty organisational forces from their difficult and by no means completed
task of organising a revolutionary workers' party; that in practice the
terrorism of the Socialist-Revolutionaries is nothing else than single
combat, a method that has been wholly condemned by the experience of
history." (Revolutsionnaya Rossiya, No.7, p.4)

Lenin further said: "In their naivete, the Socialist-Revolutionaries do not
realise that their predilection for terrorism is causally more intimately
linked with the fact that, from the very outset, they have always kept, and
still keep, aloof from the working-class movement, without even attempting
to become a party of the revolutionary class which is waging its class
struggle." [Revolutionary Adventurism, Vol. 6, LCW, p.187]

"Anarchism is a product of despair. The psychology of the unsettled
intellectual or the vagabond and not of the proletarian. Failure to
understand the class struggle of the proletariat. Absurd negation of
politics in bourgeois society. Failure to understand the role of the
organisation and the education of the workers. Panaceas consisting of
one-sided, disconnected methods. What has anarchism, at one time dominant in
the Romance countries, contributed in recent European history? No doctrine,
revolutionary teaching or theory; fragmentation of the working-class
movement; complete fiasco in the experiments of the revolutionary movement
(Proudhonism, 1871; Bakuninism 1873); subordination of the working class to
bourgeois politics in the guise of negation of politics." [Anarchism and
Socialism, Vol.5, LCW, pp.327-328]

Of late, the PWG has been losing several of its comrades in a series of
encounters. Many of its members, including some leaders, have been
surrendering to the police. In sheer desperation the PWG has resorted to
this assassination attempt. But this cannot stem the tide.


MOVE TO PRIVATISE INDIAN OIL

The NDA Government's Cabinet Committee on Disinvestment (CCD) met on 3
October 2003 to take the decision to shelve the Privatization of HPCL/BPCL
for the time being because of the Supreme Court ruling and instead put the
Indian Oil Corporation (IOC) on block. With this decision, the whole process
has taken a bizarre turn. Newspapers have reported that one of the options
being considered is splitting the IOC into smaller units and then selling
some portions of it. True to its colours, loss-making refineries are
proposed to be foisted on BPCL and HPCL, whereas the cream in the form of
Retail Network will be given to favoured corporates at cheap rates. The
government has revealed its intentions of disregarding Parliament at all
costs even if it means going back on its earlier stand of not selling IOC,
ONGC and GAIL. In this way the NDA govt. has shown its contempt for the
Parliament and national opinion represented through it.


REPORTS FROM UP

The UP State Committee of the CPI(ML) will hold a 'Jan Adhikar Rally' in
Lucknow on October 16.

The illegal detention and arrest of comrade Ishwar Dayal, who was picked up
from his house by Majhgawan police in Chandauli district and sent to jail
after putting him to severe torture and implicating falsely under arms act,
has been widely condemned.

Comrade Lal Sahab Ram, Party's state Standing Committee member and District
Secretary of Balia was attacked by BSP goons in Balia on Sep 30. He was
returning after addressing a mass meeting in a nearby dalit locality as a
part of the campaign for the October 16 rally. While police is trying to
hush up the whole incident, it has revealed the growing frustration among
BSP ranks in the region. A demonstration and gherao of thana was held on Oct
4 in protest of this incident.


B R I E F S

Udaipur unit of AIPWA held its first District Conference on   Oct 5. The
problems facing  women, especially the lack of drinking water in the
villages and severe  unemployment, were highlighted and a programme to fight
for these and  other demands was decided on.
The Rajasthan Nirman Mazdoor Sangathan  afiliated to AICCTU took out a rally
of construction workers on Sep 30 in Jaipur to demand the enactment of the
central law for construction workers to be implemented at once in Rajasthan.

A memorial meeting was organised by the CPI(ML) to commemorate the martyrdom
of Shankar Guha Niyogi on Sep 28 in Bhilai.

CPI(ML) held various programmes during Uttaranchal Bandh called on Oct 2 by
Uttarakhand Sanyukta Sangharsh Morcha. A torchlight procession, public
meeting and road blockade was organised in Shrinagar. Street corner meetings
were held in Haldwani while joint demonstrations were held at Ramnagar,
Dehradun, Rudrapur and other cities.


SHAHABUDDIN GANG KILLS PARTY ACTIVIST IN SIWAN

The Shahabuddin gang opened indiscriminate firing on Comrades Kamlesh Singh,
Achhelal Kushwaha and Naimuddin Ansari when they were passing through
Simaria village of Mairwa block in Siwan on a motor bike in the morning of
October 2 killing Comrade Kamlesh while other two are struggling for their
lives.

Shahabuddin, this time operating from inside the Siwan jail, had earlier
conspired to send Comrade Naimuddin, member of Siwan District Committee of
CPI(ML) and Mukhia of Gambhirpur panchayat, to jail in a false land-mine
case as he fears that the latter may pose a challenge to his 'unchallenged'
leadership among minority community.
Party organised statewide protests next day on Oct 3 which witnessed massive
participation by the people including the protest that took place at Mairwa
of Siwan where many thousands took part.

Bihar State Committee of CPI(ML) has reiterated its demand for transferring
notorious Shahabuddin to a jail outside Siwan and to conduct his trial
outside Siwan. The Party has said that honest and democratic sections of
society will remain under threat till Shahabuddin is not removed from the
jail in Siwan.

CPI(ML) pays its sincere tributes to martyred comrade Kamlesh Singh and
pledges to intensify the movement and to give his murderers a befitting
reply.

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